Halle Potter
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Halle Potter is seen as an all round disappointment at Hogwarts. Everyone feels the Girl Who Lived is a bimbo who cares only for fashion and boys, and doesn't care about being a hero. Everyone have their opinions, but what happens if their ideas are wrong?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. I just own this story.

My thanks to White Angel of Auralon for how Horcruxes could be destroyed.

Please let me know what you think.

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Halle Potter

_Now, this is what I'm talking about! I haven't had a decent duel for a long time! _Sirius yelled in delight mentally while he kept his usual devil-may-care smile on his face as he battled two Death Eaters at the same time, relying on his duelling training and magical mastery to keep up with the duo.

He was ecstatic at having the chance to really prove to the Order of the Phoenix after he'd spent the past year moping around his parents old house, and he hadn't really done anything beyond sitting around bored, eating and drinking enough to keep himself going while attending the pointless and useless meetings Dumbledore insisted was making a difference against the Death Eaters and their sick master.

The old fool had lost the plot if he honestly thought talking was going to make a difference.

Action was the only way to stop Voldemort, not words.

And now he was getting some action for the first time in years.

And _fuck, _didn't it feel great?

A part of him thought it was a mistake to battle two Death Eaters at the same time since they had been able to use their magic freely for the last decade without being hindered by years of being locked in a filthy prison cell in Azkaban, but he ignored the little voice. It wasn't difficult since he had regularly ignored his voice of reason over the years.

In any case, he was enjoying himself, but it wasn't long before he began to feel the effects of using so much of his magic in this one go, and he began to slow down.

The two Death Eaters he'd been fighting against for the last twenty minutes realised what was happening very quickly. "You seem to have run out of steam, eh Black?" one of them laughed.

"What's wrong, not had enough practice? Not like you, you used to be able to best one of us. Perhaps it's your magic's way of telling you that you're on the wrong side!" the other jeered cruelly.

Sirius ground his teeth angrily as he started to realise he had made a stupid mistake in duelling more than one Death Eater at the same time, but he had been so ecstatic at having the chance to really make a difference he had ignored his reasoning, and he had gone on the offensive. Now it looked like it would cost him.

Suddenly the two Death Eaters screamed in agony, and a cloud of wispy grey smoke was being drained from their bodies and was dissipating before Sirius's eyes.

Nearby, Kingsley who had been fighting off four Death Eaters and didn't seem to have broken a sweat once, backed away in shock when he saw the same thing happening to his Death Eaters.

Kingsley glanced at his fellow Order member in surprise. "What happened to them?" Sirius whispered, looking down at the six bodies in shock. The Death Eaters were writhing around, moaning in pain.

"I don't know, Sirius," Shacklebolt replied, lifting up his wand to perform a scan to get some answers. A soft green glow emerged from the tip as he scanned their bodies. Shacklebolt's eyes widened.

"No, that can't be right…," he whispered.

"Why?" Sirius asked, looking at his friend in confusion. "What's happened to them?"

"These readings make no sense," Kingsley whispered, looking at his wand as if he had never seen it before. He flicked his wand silently again to cast the same spell, but it came up with the same result. "It's true. Sirius, the Death Eaters…they have no magic anymore."

_No magic?_

Sirius almost couldn't believe it, so he pointed his own wand at the two Death Eaters he'd been fighting against to see if the same result happened. It wasn't that he didn't trust Shacklebolt, he did, but he wanted to see if it was true for his own readings. It was, and he looked down at the Death Eaters in surprise. He wasn't sure if he should laugh or weep with terror in case whatever had happened to them happened to him and the rest of the Order.

Losing their magic….Sirius simply could not work out anything more insulting for a Death Eater to endure, they believed their _pureblood _heritage gave them advantages and powers beyond anybody's comprehension, and now they lost it, they had lost their own rights. There was no way they would be able to get away with their crimes, especially since they couldn't use their age-old lies of being compelled or confounded. In any case, muggles and squibs had no rights in the magical world, although Sirius was not certain which category these Death Eaters fell into.

He almost laughed at the irony. For years the Death Eaters claimed muggles were the filthiest creatures on Earth, while they mocked and demeaned the squibs while offering _"polite condolences" _to the families of those who had squibs in them, while they sneered disdainfully at them. Sirius wondered how they would feel when they came to grips with what had happened to them, but he could not find it within himself to truly care what happened to them.

Sirius and Kingsley looked up as Remus and Tonks ran towards them; Sirius knew his friend well enough to see from the expression on the werewolf's face to know he was surprised for some reason but he wasn't completely taken by surprise.

"It's happened here as well?" Tonks asked, her metamorphic powers changing her hair into different dull colours, though Sirius had no idea what that meant, not with his cousin's flushed face and the way she looked slack jawed just looking down at their enemies.

"What, you mean this has happened throughout the Ministry?" Shacklebolt asked with equal surprise clear on his face.

"Looks like it, one minute I was fighting off three of them the next they were screaming in pain, and there was this weird _mist _swirling above them," Remus explained with a shake of his head as he tried to work out what had happened to all the Death Eaters, which had taken place at the same moment. "I scanned them, but they'd lost their magic."

"Yeah, the same thing happened to us," Sirius nodded at his old friend, but he shook his head. "I don't get it. How did this happen?"

Tonks was about to open her mouth to say something when the bright light of an approaching phoenix patronus came flying towards them.

"_Voldemort's….dead!" _An eternal form of Dumbledore's voice emerged from the patronus, and all of the Order members glanced at each other in shock, but they heard the disbelief in their leader's voice. "_Fudge and Madam Bones are here, in the atrium. Get up here, and if Sirius is with you, come along. I have a feeling we can prove his innocence without any trouble."_

The Order members looked at one another in surprise by the sudden turn of events, all of them wondering about the new dynamic and its potential outcomes. Tonks summed it up better. "What the _fuck _is going on?" she asked, but no-one had an answer for her.

XXX

A few minutes earlier….

XXX

_Oh, Tom…I had hoped your long, boring exile had withered away some of your madness and made you a little bit more controlled. But, alas, you are still the same, petulant child you always were, _Dumbledore thought to himself as he only just managed to bat away the curse Voldemort had snapped off in his direction, thankful that he shared the Dark Lord's intellectual approach to fighting duels, although he did still use high-powered curses, as well as low-powered household charms, and simple transfiguration spells which he chose thanks to his command of the mind arts.

Dumbledore used a similar approach to this particular duel, while at the same time he took note of every single spell Voldemort used against him, and making sure he kept ahead of the curve, relieved that although Voldemort had fifty years of magical knowledge and experience, he himself had a lot more magical control and experience to make his casting ability more creative.

He _knew _he had to maintain his concentration, knowing full well if he lost even a gram of it, Voldemort would get the upper hand. At the same time he had no intention of using high-powered spells or curses; while he was powerful and capable, Voldemort was not your usual opponent, and he knew if he slipped up then he would be defeated swiftly, although he had no idea if Voldemort would play with him, or just kill him outright.

As they fought against each other Dumbledore could not help but admire Voldemort's power, and he wondered if the younger wizard's power came from his Horcruxes.

He decided it made little difference.

"I am amazed, Dumbledore," Voldemort sneered, "how did you come to the Ministry so quickly?"

"I have my ways, Tom," Dumbledore replied airily, snapping another spell at Voldemort, who dispelled it quickly, only for Dumbledore to fire another two spells, only the last one Voldemort hadn't noticed.

"No, I'm serious. How did you get here, I doubt your precious _Girl Who Lived _had anything to do with it?" Voldemort smirked.

Dumbledore's face darkened a little. A look of disappointment crossed his features.

"Why so disappointed, Albus?" Voldemort asked in a tone Dumbledore would have taken to be curious and sympathetic if he wasn't already aware Tom Riddle had _never _been that way in his life.

"She is a disappointment," Dumbledore replied, hoping to throw his opponent off; if he could confuse Voldemort with false information, then he would underestimate her when they faced off in battle, believing that she was far more powerful than she was in actuality and as proficient with magic than she was, the same battle which would see Halle dead, and Voldemort weakened enough for him, Dumbledore, to deal with Voldemort once and for all.

In truth, Dumbledore was looking forward to that.

Halle Potter was, frankly, a disappointment.

Ever since the girl had arrived at Hogwarts, she had disappointed all of the staff at school, especially Minerva and Filius since they had found favourite students in James and Lily respectively with their proficiency in transfiguration and charms.

Even Remus had been disappointed with the girl since she wasn't interested in anything he taught.

Halle wasn't interested in her studies. She was more interested in her appearance, fashion, and boys. She wasn't interested in anything else. Alright, granted; the last year when the Tri-wizard tournament was taking place, Halle had surprised everyone when she arrived with perfect points in all but the third task, but that was more of a desire to live, really.

"She's hardly worth it, Tom."

Voldemort, to his surprise, laughed that same cold, high laugh he had perfected at some point around the year he had released the basilisk when he had been a prefect at Hogwarts. "Is that what you truly think, Dumbledore? Ah, it shows just how much you actually know about your students; she was lethal during our confrontation. Even I was taken by surprise, I had heard for years she was useless, and yet she was dangerous."

Dumbledore listened with surprise to the statement Voldemort had just given, and he only needed a few seconds to realise Voldemort was telling the truth. He knew the younger wizard well; when Riddle had discovered occlumency in his second year, he had been an open book, and it gave Dumbledore the means to know Riddle's terrible excuse for a mind, but he was also an expert on body language; occlumency was good for masking the mind, but that didn't stop body language from radiating information like a good library.

It never failed to amaze the elderly wizard that you could have a spoken conversation with someone, only to receive a completely different story from the individual's body language.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dumbledore noticed the atrium coming alive. He mentally despaired of the Ministry's current security procedures, in the past, the Aurors would have been here quickly, but ever since Fudge had taken control from Bagnold the disease which was complacency had atrophied the Ministry's timing in a manner Dumbledore had never liked.

He felt some satisfaction when he saw Fudge was in the front of the group, and although he couldn't really see the idiot Minister's expression, Dumbledore hoped Fudge was stunned. After a full year of acting like a fool, slandering two people, believing he was right, Dumbledore imagined the fool was in denial rather than accepting the possibility he had made a monumental mistake.

Dumbledore kept his attention wholly on Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was snickering, but then he stiffened and gasped in pain.

Bellatrix also choked and gasped in pain (Dumbledore was stunned to hear her voice, he had virtually forgotten the mad witch was there). "M-Master, what's happening?"

Voldemort was choking too much to answer her, and he gaped with horror and fear when he saw his hands starting to disintegrate into flakes of dust while a grey mist began to rise from his body, and there was a sickening sound as Voldemort's back went rigid, and more of the mist came out of what was left of his body.

Bellatrix let out a final scream as the mist left her own body before she fell to the ground, her breathing was shallow while Voldemort disintegrated into a pile of ash-like remains.

Dumbledore was rooted to the ground in shock at what he had just seen, by what had just happened. Ignoring the crowd behind him, Dumbledore walked towards the pile of ashes which had once been one of his biggest enemies, and he took out his wand to discern whether or not Voldemort was truly dead. For a good two minutes, he scanned the remains with the arcane spell he had read up about over the years. He stood up grimly, looking down at the remains thoughtfully.

There was not a drop of magic in the ashes. It was like it had all been drained. A theory was starting to blossom in Dumbledore's mind, and he walked over to Bellatrix, idly kicking her over onto her back while he scanned her body. He gasped in shock.

"Now see here, Dumbledore, what is going on? Is…._he really back?" _Fudge demanded as he blustered forward.

Dumbledore had no time to waste on Fudge. He lifted his wand and after mentally selecting the right words for the message, he silently casted the patronus charm, and sent the phoenix off to round up the rest of the Order fighting the Death Eaters. Only once it had left did he turn to look down at Fudge.

"Yes, Cornelius. That was Lord Voldemort. However, I am pretty sure he is dead, but I would like the expert help of the Unspeakables to get a second opinion," Dumbledore replied, more than willing to admit he was out of his depth with this latest twist of events.

Fudge looked around at the different faces hoping to find someone willing to tell him what to do, but he turned back to the old wizard. "But…he-," he began.

"Yes, Cornelius," Dumbledore's voice was full of annoyance. "You have hounded me and Halle Potter for the last year for no reason what so ever. You also sabotaged the education of Hogwarts by sending Dolores Umbridge, setting them back by years. I have just summoned the rest of the Order here to the atrium, now one of them is rather…notorious, but if you try anything, I will ensure you regret it."

Even as he said that, he wondered just how many shocks Fudge could take.


	2. Chapter 2

I own nothing, just this story.

Please let me know what you think.

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Halle Potter.

Sirius stumbled into his bedroom at his old family home - he was planning on either selling the property or giving it to somebody else to deal with once all the dark magic which had been twisting and mutating over the years since his mother died, he had no intention of living here any longer than he wanted - and collapsed onto the bed tiredly with a sigh of exhaustion.

He was free.

At last, after fourteen years of being in Azkaban and on the run, having to live in his dog form and scrounging through the waste for food, living in caves, being reduced to the level of an animal by Fudge and his campaign to blame everything the little bastard could not handle on his own initiative, he was free.

Sure, he had needed to endure a battery of questioning once Fudge was over the fact he was nearby, but thankfully Amelia Bones, who was infinitely more levelheaded than her boss on a good day, had managed to point out that all the other Death Eaters were helpless, and yet he was still walking just fine. Sirius had enjoyed revealing he had never been a Death Eater and had never wanted anything to do with Voldemort and his insane rampage through the magical world where he and his followers would cause genocide he and ilk didn't like.

Fudge had not been convinced. It had only been when they had discovered the Death Eaters were using Malfoy Manor as their base that things changed, especially since Wormtail was there, just as hopeless as the others. The moment he had seen the little bastard traitor, Tonks had needed to hold him back, saying if he caused harm to Pettigrew he would likely never become free.

Amelia had then questioned him thoroughly once she had seen Wormtail's unconscious, pathetic form. She had needed to wait for a positive identification before she could do it, but when she got it she was thorough. It took about six hours for his time at the Ministry to end.

Firstly Amelia had questioned him, and that had taken her a while with Pettigrew's ID to verify to get the full truth out of him; she wanted to know how he had managed to maintain some of his mental awareness and sanity in Azkaban, resulting in him telling her about his animagus form, the time he had been a member of Dumbledore's Order and the final days of the war, the changeover from him to Wormtail when Lily and James had taken Hallie into hiding before their inevitable death. She was later told of the monumental fuck-up caused when Wormtail blew up the street, how Dawlish had believed the moronic force known as Cornelius Fudge about what he _thought _had happened, and how he had been sent to Azkaban without a trial.

Amelia, a Hufflepuff herself, had not been happy about that disregard for the law, especially by that hypocrite Barty Crouch senior. Sirius would never miss the bastard, not after what he had done. Crouch had the reputation for hating anything remotely to do with the dark, so if anyone put a toe out of line, they were instantly destroyed by him. While Sirius could not deny the man had been effective against the Death Eaters, Crouch had ruined dozens of lives with his vendetta against the Death Eaters.

One thing Sirius had made _very clear _to Amelia was Crouch denying him a trial was not unique in the slightest. There had been others; Sirius had no idea just how many people had suffered, but it had been more than a few. Amelia had promised to look into the matter, but Sirius was uncertain if she was being sincere, especially since many ministry department managers tended to follow the politics, but hopefully with Fudge's tenure now being scrutinised since he had spent the last year fucking things up, but Sirius didn't care. He had never been interested in politics even though he had been educated about it.

Sirius sighed and rested his eyes, hoping to just get some sleep. He had been questioned for hours, and he was tired; it was a testament to how physically tired he truly was since he had long since planned on partying to celebrate his freedom, but he was too tired and he had so much on his mind.

It had been shocking when the Death Eaters lost their magic. Wizards losing their magic, it was shocking….unthinkable even though it had been used as a poetic punishment decades ago, designed to make dark witches and wizards, or really stupid people who had baited or targeted muggles for the same stupid reasons Voldemort had preached. The Ministry had been a bit more with it then, and they had felt if the dark wizards had wanted to target muggles so much, they should experience life from their perspective. They had considered it the ultimate insult, that they were becoming muggles themselves.

But it hadn't been used for years, and the old method had not been used for years, and it had just hit them all. It had even hit Voldemort himself, but whatever the bastard had done to himself, with those vile rituals which only the most depraved witches or wizards used, which only proved Voldemort was not someone anyone would want to follow although it was academic now since he was dead.

The good news was not only had Fudge seen the bastard, but Amelia had as well. With Voldemort having been proven to be back before his now surprising and unexpected death, Fudge now knew he was on borrowed time. Personally, Sirius saw it as a victory. So did many other members of the Order.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore seemed….pensive about the whole thing; he hadn't said anything, but he didn't need to. Sirius could tell the old wizard was worried about the cause of what had happened, but he had heard from Tonks and Shack who had told him that Bones and Fudge and several other Aurors had come through the floo before Voldemort died that the dark wizard had been speaking about how Hallie was more powerful than others gave her credit for.

_Hallie? _

Sirius wanted to scoff. Hallie was capable, yeah but she was a fashionista who cared more about makeup, fashion, and boys. In truth, she was incredibly ditzy, clueless. Sirius had often heard Hermione call her a bimbo, and he had begun to believe it.

The time she'd mastered the Patronus charm and managed to prove herself capable of fighting in the Tri-wizard tournament had just been exceptions, but otherwise….Sirius was disappointed with the girl, and he wondered if her muggle relatives had twisted the girl, making her apathetic in learning more about her magical heritage. He couldn't think of any other reason why she wasn't interested, but the last time he checked Petuniawasn't interested in fashion, so he guessed she had discovered it by herself. Probably the only thing she had discovered, aside from boys.

But Sirius was disappointed; for years, he had wondered if Hallie was either like her mother or her dad. Lily was in the same brainy category as Remus, but James hadn't been a slouch. It was painful to know that his goddaughter hadn't really seemed to have inherited the brains of her parents, and he wondered if it would have been different had they survived that terrible night, or he had been smarter and found a way to raise her himself.

It was academic. Hallie was not the type of people to look up to, hell she was more into herself than anybody else.

And yet Voldemort had said the Hallie he had fought and the Hallie they knew were different people. Sirius's first thought was Voldemort was lying to them, leading them along some manipulative thread while pulling the strings in a game only he could see, but there was no way to tell.

Sirius groaned and closed his eyes, wishing he had a potion so he could get some rest. He growled in frustration after trying and failing to get some sleep. He growled again while he looked for his wand, and when he found it he gladly incanted a sleeping spell. Not the perfect way of getting some kip, but it was better than waiting for hours and hours.

XXX

_What the _hell _had Voldemort meant when he had said that about Hallie? _Dumbledore thought to himself furiously as he paced up and down his office watched by the portraits who were awake, although the constant way he had walked from one part of the room to the other had been hypnotic and sent them back to sleep, Fawkes as well.

But at that point, Dumbledore didn't give a damn.

He had spent the last few hours at the Ministry, answering the interminable questions from Fudge. The little fool had tried to cosy up to Dumbledore for some reason the old wizard could not work out since the little fool had spent the last year causing trouble. Dumbledore wasn't too concerned, of course. Voldemort may be gone - something Albus had a very hard time accepting - but there was no way in hell Fudge would last much longer in the Ministry office. Not only had he known the rumour Voldemort was back for a whole year, but he had caused huge amounts of damage and there was no way he could get out of it, especially if Malfoy had lost his magic, and no longer had the strength or the ability to influence the arrogant pathetic little man.

Dumbledore grimaced. Like the Unspeakabless, Dumbledore had no idea how the Death Eaters had lost their magic but he couldn't think of anything more offensive to them; he had known for years of the moronic belief muggle-borns were suspected of being thieves of pureblood magic, and the pureblood extremists who listened had jumped on the bandwagon to express their hatred and ignorance of muggle-borns. It was the same old story; so many pureblood wizards were so jealous and resentful of muggle-borns who were not only more powerful than they were, but more capable of understanding magic than they were.

So they had believed every stupid little lie Voldemort had told them. But how the hell would muggle-borns take magic if they hadn't known about it?

The logic of that thought eluded him, and if he needed any more proof Voldemort had certainly inherited the Gaunt family madness, he had it then.

But it didn't explain what had happened to the Death Eaters. Nor did it explain what had happened to Voldemort.

Dumbledore sighed loudly. He had been forced, reluctantly, to inform Croaker and a few other members of the Department of Mysteries about Voldemort's Horcruxes. The Unspeakables were far from impressed that he had neglected to tell them since they had the means and the knowledge of tracking the vile things down, and even destroying them.

Dumbledore had been surprised at the idea although he knew it was foolish of him to believe only he knew about the disgusting things. So many people over the centuries had tried to purge the magical world of that knowledge, and largely they had succeeded since only a few knew about them. But unfortunately, the more you tried to destroy something, the easier it was for something to fall through the cracks.

Halle Potter was one of those students he had long since had hoped would be exceptional but had proven to be a disappointment. He would have hoped the girl would have mixed with the Weasley family, but no such luck since she preferred the company of Parvati Patil, and Lavender Brown who was seen by many as the fashionistas of Hogwarts. Truthfully there was nothing wrong with that if you took into account he didn't actually want her to excel past a certain level, but Dumbledore had been deeply disappointed with her over the years for failing to commit to the tests he had set for her.

She hadn't gone anywhere near the Philosopher's Stone, however, he had wondered what had happened to the stone itself. Second-year, nothing serious had happened, so it had been a quiet year, and third-year she had found out about Sirius by chance. In the girl's fourth year, she had shown some degree of ability, but it had been fleeting.

Dumbledore had thousands of questions on his mind. The only problem he had was trying to figure out how Voldemort had died when he had heard a prophecy depicting someone who would be capable of weakening Voldemort enough for someone more qualified (like Dumbledore himself, if he did say so himself) to kill the crazed Dark Lord.

What had happened to the Horcruxes? Were they truly gone? It certainly appeared that was the case, the Unspeakables had scanned the ash-like remains of Voldemort's body, and they hadn't found any necromantic magic imbued in the remains which were active. That meant something had happened to the Horcruxes, but what?

Dumbledore sighed and he decided to head to bed. He would think about the best way available to him to find a way to answer his questions once he'd had a few hours of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Halle Potter.

"This session of the Order of the Phoenix is now in session," Dumbledore said formally as he took his seat at the head of the table. The old wizard took a moment to look over the various members. Dumbledore would have been the first to admit he wasn't impressed with the people who had flocked to his side; his legend may have helped him with the recruitment process, but the likes of Bagnold and Fudge had caused more than their own fair share of problems.

Instead of the proficient group of Healers, Curse-Breakers, and Aurors he had hoped, along with specialists in many other fields, Dumbledore had been forced to make do with a mixed group, some of them had no combat experience and were in essence incredibly useless despite their knowledge of magic.

He shook that off although he felt some degree of sorrow when he saw Severus was not there. The Potions Master had been one of the casualties of the…whatever it was which had ripped the magic out of the Death Eaters. While he had trusted Severus, it had been to a point. Dumbledore was not foolish, he knew the other wizard had been out only for himself. He had grown to realise the philosophies of the Light and the Dark were basically meaningless, but he seemed to flitter from one side to the next. It was only the oath he had forced on Severus, tricking the other wizard into swearing it after the Potions Master had come to him when he realised his choices had been poorly chosen, and Severus had only sworn it to protect Lily Potter.

Now the oath was likely broken, but Dumbledore had no time at this point to properly think about the implications just yet.

He looked down at his hands.

"Well, what did Halle say?" Molly asked.

All of the Order leaned in eagerly to hear what their Girl Who Lived To Be Nothing But A Disappointment had to say. Unfortunately, Dumbledore had been having trouble finding the girl, who had proven elusive on the run-up to the end of the year. But he had sent word tonight to say he had managed to catch up with the girl, and he would bring whatever she said to the next meeting which would be held tonight.

Dumbledore sighed. "Nothing. She didn't know what I was talking about, she even went as far as to ask whether Voldemort would ever come to her when she went out on dates," he growled the last word uncharacteristically, deeply frustrated with the failure that was Halle Potter.

The Order groaned and muttered to themselves. It was true, the Girl Who Lived was a failure, she didn't seem to realise the repercussions of the end of Voldemort's life and the loss of the Death Eaters.

Sirius shook his head, thinking Lily and James would be ashamed of her. He promised he would make sure she understood that the next time he spoke to her via the mirrors.

"Enough of this," Moody barked, wanting nothing more than to move on from a girl who everyone knew was a waste of time. "What's Fudge doing?"

Dumbledore sighed. "Fudge is going to be removed from office. It's a foregone conclusion; the last time a Minister for Magic ignored the warning signs of a Dark Lord rising caused thousands of deaths. The Minister who came after mercilessly wrote a law in magic to make sure the next time a future Minister made a similar mistake, they were to be thrown out of the office without question."

Some of the Order exchanged surprised glances at that, they hadn't known that little detail but they could see the logic behind the idea.

"Do we know who the next Minister is going to be?" Tonks asked.

"No. Not just yet; Amelia Bones has got her hands full with investigating Fudge's activities, and that will take time, but it won't take long while the Ministry makes the preparations to deal with Fudge; Voldemort," Dumbledore paused as the expected flinches and gasps at the sound of the name passed, "might be dead, but Fudge not only knew about the possibility of his return, and yet he had decreed Halle as a liar. The fact he was wrong proves he isn't a good leader, especially if it could have cost the country many lives."

The Order once again saw the logic behind the explanation. They knew the return of the Dark Lord would have brought with it the horrors and chaos of the last war. While they could understand and even respect Fudge's denial, they knew it was not a good move on his part. Very few of the Order were sympathetic towards Fudge since he had caused many problems for them over the year. But truthfully he had never been a popular man with some of the group because of his lack of common sense and his inability to administrate the Ministry without someone telling him what to do.

"What's new about the Death Eaters?" Shacklebolt asked curiously.

"The Unspeakables are still examining them, but it is clear the Dark Mark connected them to Voldemort; they found traces of a connection between them and him. Apparently they sent a trickle of magic into Voldemort's body," Dumbledore shook his head; everyone thought he was being sympathetic to the loss of their magic, but while that was true given how unthinkable and how disturbing it was for a witch or a wizard to lose their magic, he was confused about why Voldemort even needed the Death Eater's magic.

Moody, who recognised whenever someone wasn't telling the full truth, and as an old friend to Dumbledore watched the old wizard questioningly. "What aren't you saying, Dumbledore? You may as well tell us since he's gone," he growled.

Dumbledore had never liked telling anyone about his secrets. It went against his nature, but he had to admit there was no point in hiding anything about Voldemort now since the Dark Lord was gone. He sighed. "Alright. I wasn't sure at first, but it was a suspicion….have you ever heard of a Horcrux?"

Dumbledore was expecting no-one to know what a Horcrux was, so he was understandably concerned and worried when he received a reaction from Alastor, Sirius, and surprisingly of all, Bill Weasley.

"Horcruxes?!" Sirius gaped. "That fool created a Horcrux?"

"Why didn't you say a word, Albus?" Moody demanded.

"He made a Horcrux?" Bill Weasley shook his head, clearly surprised anyone would be so stupid if Dumbledore was reading his expression correctly. "No wonder he was mad."

Dumbledore was surprised himself. "How do you three know about Horcruxes?" he demanded, wondering if he could get away with wiping their memory, but he decided to hear what they had to say.

"Hello, I was the Heir to one of the darkest families in the magical world," Sirius replied first, speaking in a sarcastic, slow manner as if he were speaking to a child, which Dumbledore hated immensely but the old wizard said nothing. "My family taught me everything about the worst types of magic imaginable. My father and my grandfather taught me and my brother, and my cousins as well, about what would happen if we split our souls. They wouldn't rest until we were wiped out for breaking one of the most important laws of magic itself; never split the soul."

"Split the soul?" Tonks whispered in horror.

"It's a dark necromantic ritual," Moody explained. "I discovered the knowledge of the Horcruxes when I was a young Auror; I wanted to learn everything I could about dark magic, so I could fight it better. You prepare your soul, some form of container; a bracelet, a book, a statue, or even a tree, and then you go out, and commit a murder against….," the old retired Auror sighed and swallowed visibly, which worried everyone since they knew whatever he was going to say, it was not good, "an innocent soul."

"An innocent soul…?"

"You don't mean-?" Molly clapped a hand to her mouth, feeling physically ill. "Please tell it's not what I think it is…"

"A child," Sirius whispered in confirmation, nodding solemnly but the expression of nausea made it clear what he made of it, shaking his head at the disgusting practices of some people who had not realised what they were doing.

Molly Weasley gasped in horror.

"How did you find out about Horcruxes, William?" Dumbledore asked, feeling ill himself; even though he had already known about this disgusting piece of magic, he always felt sick just thinking about the sort of thing you needed to do to get it to work.

Bill sighed although he didn't react as Tonks would at the fact his chosen shortened name was being ignored. "My Curse Breaker Training. Horcruxes have been around for thousands of years, far earlier than is believed. Herpo the Foul may have discovered the ritual, and he brought it out into the open, but every ancient magical society invariably looks to soul magic, and it doesn't take them long to discover the existence of the Horcrux."

"The goblins know about them?" Dumbledore whispered, surprised by the implications.

Bill nodded. "Yeah, they do. The goblins have been dealing with Horcruxes for centuries, and they hate them with a passion. So many treasures have been destroyed or permanently lost because some idiots read and believed the rubbish in books like _The Darkest Arts _and believed that was the only way they could destroy Horcruxes."

"But it isn't?"

"No. In any case, Horcruxes don't work but they leave a nasty taint on any treasure those idiots have left on them."

"Horcruxes don't work?" Moody looked at the young Curse Breaker in surprise, but he wasn't the only one since Dumbledore was trying valiantly hard to control his emotions at the news.

"Of course they don't; in theory, splitting the soul should make you immortal, but in practice what it does is tear the magic of a body apart. One of the biggest flaws in many people's minds is magic comes from the blood; it doesn't. It carries the magic from the soul, but if you damage the soul, you damage your magic, and it also damages the body and the mind. If they did work, where are the immortals who have created them?" Bill explained, but then he smiled thoughtfully. "It all makes sense, really; that explains why You-Know-Who vanished, and why he survived when he should have died."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore demanded.

"The Death Eaters. At some point, I don't know when or if the circumstances were different, You-Know-Who must have worked out the Horcruxes were causing damage to his magic, never mind his body and his appearance, so he devised a way of channelling the magic of his followers into himself to stay alive for a little longer. That's why he didn't die the night of '81 because he had leeched off of his followers," Bill explained.

Moody thumped the table. "I kept telling you we should be killing the Death Eaters, but you never listened."

Dumbledore closed his eyes in embarrassment.

XXX

A few weeks later, Dumbledore called another meeting. Everyone was surprised since Dumbledore would usually be recovering from the ICW conference that he needed to attend each year which dealt with concerns about the Statute of Secrecy. None of the older members was surprised the conference time had been rescheduled to be earlier; although Voldemort hadn't proven to be a threat for long, the ICW had long memories. They remembered how close the magical world had come to being exposed because of Voldemort's genocidal war.

Dumbledore had been out of the country for over a week, so everyone in the Order had fully expected the elderly wizard to be more concerned with recuperating before he returned to his usual routine, so they were surprised when he called the meeting and called it urgent.

When they saw Dumbledore, they saw exhaustion warring with surprise and even outrage. He threw three sheets of parchment on to the table. "Read those, and pass them around," he ordered.

The nearest Order members did as they were told, and they looked at the sheets in shock before passing them around.

"How is this possible, 15 OWLs, and 15 NEWTs and she is now studying for masteries?!"

"I thought the girl was a failure."

And on and on it went until Dumbledore lifted up his wand and fired a noisemaker spell. "That is enough," he snapped with some bite to his voice that told everyone in the room Dumbledore wasn't in the mood for noise. "We are here for a meeting, not a debate. Right now, I need to know how Halle Potter, a girl everyone considered to be a failure and a disappointment was able to do all of this under our noses."

Bill Weasley was reading through the sheet in his hand. "I think she's been doing this all along, Professor," he said, "on the surface, she pretended to be terrible, but underneath it all, she was planning all of this. There's no way someone can go from a zero to success in the short span of the year, particularly the busiest year in a Hogwarts students career."

"I agree," Moody glanced up and into McGonagall's face. "What of you, Minerva? Was there any sign of the girl achieving this level?"

"None," McGonagall shook her head. "She was vague about what she planned to do when she left Hogwarts; in fact, the girl laughed off a few choices I gave her, but I don't know what she was doing all that time."

"There has to be a trail that shows what she's been doing," Lupin commented.

Sirius was in a state of shock. For a long time, he had been telling Halle the girl was a disappointment to him and to her dead parents, so it was a blow to his psyche to discover all this. At that point, he reached a decision. "I know we can find out," he announced.

Everyone turned to him. "What is it?" Molly demanded. She had always wanted Halle to marry Ron, certain the girl was too stupid to not care about her inheritance so the Weasley family could acquire it.

"I gave her one of a pair of two-way mirrors; it was just a gift, but she said she needed a new mirror to use at school. I haven't used it and neither has she," Sirius explained.

"A two-way mirror?" Dumbledore repeated. "Bring it down at once, Sirius!"

Sirius was gone for about five minutes before he hurried back. Dumbledore enlarged the mirror so then it was big enough to be seen by everyone in the Order.

"Halle Potter," Sirius said clearly.

A few minutes later and Halle's face appeared in the mirror. "Hello Sirius," she yawned; clearly wherever she was, the time was different. "What is it? Ooh," she said when she saw the Order. "And the Order of the Phoenix as well, wow I am popular, aren't I?"

"We've gotten your results, Halle," Sirius replied tightly.

Despite everything they had learnt so far, everyone expected the Girl Who Lived to offer some airheaded comment, but instead, she smirked. "Oh you got them?" she asked. "Oh good! How does it feel to have been misled over the years, hmm? Not much of a disappointment then, am I?"

"Halle, I never thought you were a disappointment-," Sirius tried to say, but the Girl laughed scornfully.

"Oh, please. Don't insult me, Sirius; you weren't subtle with your put-downs. None of you were," she sneered. "You kept saying it; did you really think I couldn't understand? But I was a disappointment, simply because I am not my parents, or more accurately, not my father."

Sirius looked down before Halle's eyes flickered over to Dumbledore. "Hello, Headmaster," she said cordially. "How does it feel to be brought down a few pegs because you misjudged a student? You old fool; you spent all that time playing games, and yet you never realised I was playing you….and I won because I never let on what I was doing."

"Why would you do this?" Dumbledore demanded.

Halle laughed briefly for a moment but her eyes narrowed. When she spoke it was like her voice had become toxic. "I thought that was obvious; I knew the magical world had far too much interest in how I turned out, so I decided to do everything I could to be the opposite of what people wanted from me. I faked my bimbo persona, although it was fun, and I didn't excel at my schoolwork since it doesn't have any bearing on the OWL or NEWT results."

"But why go this far? You would have been a celebrated student!" McGonagall asked.

"Do you really believe that?" Halle asked scornfully. "I know you had Ron and Ginny Weasley spy on me, Dumbledore. I also knew Hermione Granger was as well, but my friendships with Parvati and Lavender stopped them doing much damage. You just wanted to control me, control my life and my education, so I decided to make it easier for you, by doing the barest minimum. In any case, I had no intention of showing off my brains. In any case, I knew if I did show off my brains, it would just draw unwanted attention to me. It would have just made the Girl Who Lived more plausible. Every day would have been like living in a cage. I didn't want to live like that. Besides," Halle's voice became calmer, "what better way of winning my freedom if I didn't _con _the lot of you."

"Con?" Tonks whispered.

"Haven't you worked out what I am?" Halle sneered triumphantly. "I am a Con artist. I play games, tricks on people. I've gotten a lot of money out of this one, but what I really wanted my freedom, and I did not care about what I had to do to win it."

"You played games with us just to win your freedom?" Dumbledore drew his wand. If he could just cast a tracking spell, they could find Halle.

"Ahah! Don't be stupid, Headmaster; you can't track me down, not with the spells I've just used," Halle said.

"What kind of tricks do you play with people?" Arthur asked.

"I use them to steal money. Lots of money. Shortly after the Dursleys died, I was _adopted _by a con artist who taught me the tricks of the trade. Or how about, I simply learnt it by myself? Hmm? You have no way of knowing, just like you won't ever see me again."

"Why, why would you do this?" Sirius looked heartbroken.

Halle wasn't touched. "When I arrived at Hogwarts, I had fame on one side, and a Dark Lord on the other. I just wanted to be left alone. I had considered letting you in on the secret, Sirius, but you let me down by not breaking out of prison sooner. You have an animagus form; you didn't need to wait for long before you could break out, but you didn't. Why were you relying on a newspaper which prints lies and half-truth on a daily basis to let you know where Pettigrew was when you could have escaped; you could have found other options, but you didn't. And when you did break out, you didn't give a thought about me; Pettigrew was your priority, I would always come last in that event. Last year, during the tournament, not once did you think to contact me and let me know you could teach me tips on how to survive; I had to rely on myself, and only after task number one did you bother to get in touch. I didn't show it, but I can tell you I was pissed off. And besides, you thought I was a failure as well, so why should I bother with you now? In any case, it doesn't matter anymore, not now I have my freedom, and that is all I wanted. And I've got it. Ciao!"

The mirror shut off and Sirius howled with anger and loss. He was furious with himself for going along with everyone and condemning Halle when she was smarter than everyone thought.

But what was worse was she didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore.

Dumbledore was just stunned, and the rest of the Order was no different.


	4. Chapter 4

And that's it - the final chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

Halle Potter.

Halle stepped off of the Hogwarts Express for the last time. She could honestly say she wouldn't miss the experience, especially since it took all day to travel between Scotland and London, even with magic. It was also the last time she would be using her bimbo persona, so there was something to celebrate there although she wasn't completely out of the woods yet.

"So, what are you guys doing this summer?" Parvati asked her best friends forever.

"Oh, I was thinking of going partying all summer, but I dunno; with You Know Who now gone forever, and everyone can rest easy, my family won't be spooked," Lavender replied with a wide smile before she turned to Halle. "What about you, Halle?"

"I'm thinking of going abroad," Halle replied, giving them a pointed look.

A look of realisation crept into both girl's faces.

"Ooh, so you're finally doing it?" Lavender whispered, knowing what her friend had in mind.

Lavender and Parvati had known the off Halle was just thinking of leaving Britain behind for a long time, travel to different pastures. At least that was what they were meant to think. They didn't know what Halle's real plans were of course, but while Halle trusted Lavender and Parvati more than she trusted anybody else in Hogwarts, she wasn't stupid enough to tell them about the rest of her agenda. They didn't know she was conning not just the Order of the Phoenix, but the magical world as a whole.

Lavender and Parvati both assumed Halle wanted to go to a more glamorous school or something like that, but they didn't know the full details.

Halle nodded, wavy hair bouncing. "Yeah," she replied.

Parvati hugged her. "I'm going to miss you," she said.

Halle hugged her back. "Don't forget I've got your mirrors, so you can give me a shout or I can give you a shout," she reassured the Indian witch.

Lavender was the next one to hug her.

When all the hugs were done, the three girls made a last-minute decision to meet up at some point - it was hard for Halle because she needed to do some last-minute NEWT study, so she couldn't completely commit to anything; she didn't want to go partying somewhere only to arrive late at the Ministry for her final exams, so she told them it would be awkward, but if they could arrange for a later date then she could go partying with them. Lavender and Parvati had agreed, realising their best friend had a good point, so they agreed.

When they left the Platform, Halle was more vigilant that ever since she wasn't sure if Dumbledore had sent some of his Order to the platform to make sure she went to someplace or another as they had done for the last few years, but as she walked out of the station stepping out into the muggle side of King's Cross after shrinking her trunk down, Halle knew it would be yet another thing she wouldn't miss.

Once she went down to the Underground after getting her ticket, Halle went down to the Victoria Line, and she travelled to the line's namesake, the mainline station at Victoria. She boarded a train bound for Brighton where she lived.

Halle had once been raised by her aunt and uncle and cousin, but after she had poisoned them she had gone into foster care. When she had gone to Hogwarts, one of the first things she had tried to find out as if she would be able to leave the foster home, especially since Dumbledore was poking his nose into her business.

She didn't understand why Dumbledore had such a vested interest since, from what she'd learnt during her first year, the teachers had been surprised he hadn't even known where she was since she had been seven years old.

Halle travelled all the way back to Brighton. She had a short amount of time before she had to study for her NEWTs.

XXX

Halle grinned as she rubbed her body up against a guy, smiling lasciviously at him as she felt his erect cock rubbing against her body as she danced while out of the corner of her eye she could see Lavender's busty, voluptuous frame hugging a black guy who was grinning at her. For Halle this was a night to celebrate even as she ran a hand up and down the guy's cock (why he had to wear jeans, she had no idea), muttering things into his ear even as the loud music made her ears ache.

She had done it.

She had completed the third phase of her plan to con the magical world, by doing her OWLs and now her NEWTs, and she had just finished today.

Halle knew she would receive the results in a couple of weeks from now, so all she had to do now was wait. This night was a celebration for her, for finishing up her NEWTs, and when she had sex with this guy, it would be a double celebration.

Snape usually accused her of being arrogant - actually the greasy bastard liked to say she was as stupid as her father, although truthfully she didn't really care, Halle knew she had succeeded in her NEWTs. She had been studying more advanced magic for years and years, and she had sat in the advanced classes for magical electives she had never been allowed to sit because she knew Dumbledore would just poke his long nose in where it didn't belong and because most people would think she was too stupid and retarded to comprehend the more advanced magical classes.

"Take me to your place," she whispered in the guy's ear, kissing him on the lips while looking into his eyes and using her training in the mind arts to get him to do what she wanted.

The guy grinned and he took her out of the club. He took her back to his home - she was not really put out he lived with his parents still even though she guessed it didn't really do his street cred any good, but they had gotten used to the fact their son loved bringing back any girl and screwing them - and once they were in his bedroom, she slid off her party dress, exposing her smooth skin and her tight bra and panties. He grinned at her, and she smiled back before she went over, dragging him to the bed. She pulled off his trousers, pulling down his boxers and exposing his erect cock.

She gently licked the tip and took it into her mouth and bobbed her head up and down the length.

She heard the guy moan and thrust his penis harder into her mouth before she stopped blowing him. Halle ignored his moan, and she snapped off her bra and slid her panties off. She lay flat on her back on the bed, watching as he ripped off his clothes and clambered onto the bed before she opened her legs.

The guy slid his cock into her cunt and started to thrust into her….

XXX

Halle smirked smugly as she read through the results of her first masteries. She had passed. She had gained her first masteries; if that, coupled with her NEWT and OWL scores, weren't a poke in the eye to the people who kept deriding her, calling her useless, then she didn't know what wasn't.

It had been a really easy task for her to leave for America, especially since she had made use of non-magical transport as quickly as she could. Only she had headed for Europe only to shake off any member of Dumbledore's moronic Order who might have been following her. Once she was safely ensconced in Magical Italy, she had applied for the masteries and told them she planned to take them somewhere else to give her the time needed to study up for them. The examiner board hadn't cared since they knew it would take time for her to study the subjects anyway since the level was of a much higher standard than what was expected from a NEWT level exam.

It made little difference to Halle; she didn't care where she got her masteries, as long as she got them.

She had travelled to America, making doubly sure to make sure they knew she was there. She wanted to spend time seeing and exploring the muggle sights there, although she would have to book in a visitors VISA, and she had to accept if she cast a spell then the MACUSA would be there before she even finished whatever she was doing. Halle knew the Americans had good reason to be paranoid about the idea of magic being revealed; they had dealt with two potential disclosures in their history, although the history books on the subject were vague about which of the two was worst; the Dorcus Twelvetree's mess where some stupid and irresponsible witch had allowed her wand to be taken. Even worse, for some reason she could not begin to work out, she had revealed the existence of where one of America's most important schools was located.

The fallout had been tremendous and just spending over an hour in the MACUSA had given Halle was a taste of their desire to keep the magical world as far from the muggles as possible.

The man Twelvetrees had been interested in had known magic was real, and even better he believed magic was evil. In many ways, he was no different from many other like-minded muggles; Halle might like muggle culture, but that didn't mean she had to like their attitudes in the face of the unknown. As soon as he had the proof his organisation had needed that magic was real, they started taking pictures of the wand the muggle had stolen from Twelvetrees, and they also looked into the places she had provided addresses for, and they sent letters to important muggles to enquire about dangerous occult groups there.

The MACUSA had a virtually impossible time coping with the mess, and even the president wasn't entirely sure if they'd accounted for the memories of all of the people involved, and it worried even Halle, a witch from a different generation. The MACUSA had then gone deeper underground, and they covered their tracks so well their own people weren't even allowed to be friends with muggles.

That made sense, especially since Dorcus Twelvetrees' had made the mistake of being interested in a muggle stranger. The MACUSA wouldn't want the same mistake repeated since the next time it happened, their society would be revealed.

In comparison, the 1920's incident involving Grindelwald trying to harness the power of an Obscurial for his own ends was probably smaller in scale than the Dorcus Twelvetree's mess, but it was still significant in a worrying way. The thought of muggles twisting a young witch or wizard into something like that was bad enough, and it reminded Halle of just how bad it could have been for her, especially since the Dursleys kept treating her like she was a monster, just for being a witch herself. But the thought of someone who should have been helped and pitied being taken and brainwashed into becoming some kind of weapon made her sick.

In any case, the incident had very nearly revealed the existence of magic to the muggles. It was only the intervention of Newt Scamander who used a special potion of some sort to be spread by a Thunderbird which allowed for the wipe of the muggles' memories.

Halle had no intention of getting on the wrong side of the MACUSA, which was one of the chief reasons behind her decision to buy an Auror-grade holster, which came with several different charms on it to prevent muggles or squibs from seeing it, and her wand. She had no desire to make the same mistake Dorcus Twelvetrees had made, but if someone attacked her, she had another way to deal with them, but she had no intention of getting rid of the wand. She was a witch and she had no intention of going anywhere without it. Her wand was one of her proudest possessions, and she wasn't going to get rid of it just because a bunch of muggles thought magic was evil.

Halle had a great time in America when she wasn't busy with her first masteries. She had already been studying for them for the last few weeks since she'd arranged to get them in Europe, but the time she had free she used to explore the muggle side of New York. While she enjoyed being in the Big Apple and even took a few photos of herself in some of the most spectacular places, although she would need to find the right magical developer to get the pictures to move, Halle was disgusted.

Muggles had such a worrying inability to keep clean, and their cities reflected it. It was just as bad in a city as dense as New York. They smoked, their cars produced nauseous fumes which polluted the air. Walking through the streets without choking was an achievement, but she still had fun.

XXX

Halle put the mirror down after she had just said her farewell to the Order of the Phoenix, and she sat back in her padded chair thoughtfully, her plans for a night out clubbing and having fun and perhaps getting into some bed with some guy forgotten for the time being as she just sat there lost in thought.

She had been a con artist for as long as she could remember. Ever since she had poisoned the Dursleys and she had been placed into foster care, although no-one investigating the murder of her relatives had cottoned on to what she was doing since she had cleverly left the house after leaving the front door open in the middle of the night and had been found wandering the streets near Number 4, Halle had been a con artist.

But it wasn't until she had looked in books and novels and listened to what reformed con artists said about what conmen did and how they did it that she began to develop her skills, so by the time she had entered the wizarding world she had developed a fake persona to fool people into thinking she was harmless.

At the same time, she had run a few harmless cons here and there to develop her experience. She had also begun looking for experienced con artists so then she could learn from their experiences, as well as learning of their mistakes so she wouldn't be making them herself when she got started. She found over five of them. It had taken them a while to accept her as a kind of apprentice, but when they saw how keen she was to learn, they taught her the basics and even showed her more complex cons.

Entering the magical world had come up with a number of problems in itself.

She had known something wasn't quite right with the magical world from the moment Hagrid had told her about the Girl Who Lived legend she was meant to embody. On top of that Hagrid had gone out of his way to keep her away from certain bits and pieces when they'd shopped for her first year.

Year one at Hogwarts was essentially when she had been testing the waters and developing her plans. As the years had gone and she had settled into her bimbo persona to fool everyone, Halle had worked out how she could break out of Dumbledore's control.

Hagrid had made it clear Dumbledore had been keeping a watch on her finances, and he was also the one who had placed her with the Dursleys until she had murdered them when she had had enough of them and their treatment of her. Dumbledore was the number one threat to her plans, so he had needed to be fooled, and since he didn't spend that much time with her and only saw her at intervals, hiding the truth was not difficult. What worried her the most when she went to Diagon Alley the second time to acquire the books she had been led away from was the news people could read her mind, and so she had spent the remainder of the summer break before she went to Hogwarts on the express, so when she went she had passable occlumency barriers and she had limited legilimency skills, but they would improve as time went on. When she would receive her invisibility cloak she found a model for the best way to hide her mind and her plans. She divided her mind into two, her innermost thoughts and her plans would be hidden from the view of other magicals who probed her mind, while the outermost edges of her mind were flooded with her bimbo persona. Thoughts of fashion, boys, and sex would be flooded into the minds of anyone who probed her thoughts. And boy did she get lots of attention.

Her first year was easy. She'd just needed to probe the mind of Professor Sprout who had no mental defences to speak of, so finding out about the Philosopher's stone was easy. The hard part was acquiring it and replacing it with a clever fake since Dumbledore had placed so many defences on the door of the disused classroom housing the mirror it was going to be placed in, but she had managed it by picking Dumbledore's pocket and replacing it with a piece of rock she had transfigured by using the simplest transfiguration spell she knew.

Dumbledore never suspected a thing. True, Gryffindor hadn't won any points at the end of the year, but that meant nothing to her. She wasn't the only member of the House, and truthfully she didn't give a crap about points since the Hogwarts house point system was rubbish since some of the teachers favoured different students anyway.

The second-year was just as easy even if Gilderoy Lockhart was an embarrassment not only to the name of a wizard but as a con artist as well. Honestly, how on Earth had Granger not sussed what Lockhart got wrong in his books, she would never know. There were so many dating inconsistencies it wasn't funny. Anyway, with Dobby the mad elf harassing her and managing to nick the Marauder's Map off of the Weasley twins, which helped her pinpoint Ginny Weasley at the site of the attacks when she had figured out what the map could do and how it contained a record of everything which happened days before, she found it easy to get the diary off of the younger girl. She had sent the diary off to the goblins since she was out of her depth and she knew Dumbledore wouldn't help. They had sent an angry letter back, demanding to know how she'd found the Horcrux.

That had been the key.

The goblins and her formed an alliance which had taken about a year and a half to forge to finally end Voldemort's threat, and over the coming years where she had needed to deal with both Sirius Black and Remus Lupin entering her life and becoming disappointed because they had believed in Halle's bimbo persona which was a contrast to their beloved friends, Lily and James, and the Tri-wizard tournament where she had been forced to reveal some of her spell repertoire just to stay alive, along with her forward-thinking skills which had helped her against the dragon and the merpeople in the first and second tasks respectively although she had continued to act like a bimbo although she had fought like she was insane when Voldemort had come back. The Dark Lord had been taken by surprise by her spell repertoire since he had come to believe she was stupid, although he had been annoyed that his plan to come back with the Stone he had thought he had stolen three years before would provide immortality had proven to be a clever fake.

Halle had needed to deal with the scorn of people not believing her Voldemort was back, but she had kept her head down. She had decided she wasn't going to bother convincing people of the danger, it would come out on its own, and if they weren't prepared then too bad. The Order and the teachers in the know hadn't liked it but she hadn't cared.

It was good she had managed to get one over on the Order and the magical world, and she smirked at the thought of winding them up for years by making them think she was a useless bimbo who cared only for little things when she had a plan in mind for everything.

Her mirror chimed again.

Halle reached for it and answered it. Immediately Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil's faces coalesced on the screen. She inwardly sighed as she wondered what they were going to say.


End file.
